


inside the quilt of your hand

by duchamp



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 18:22:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9284231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: The point is this: Kate knows that no matter how much you love someone, you have to give them the space they need. If they want to be alone, you remove yourself. If they want quiet, despite how much you might want them to share with you, you give them the quiet they crave.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonnycrocketts](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sonnycrocketts).



> For [sonnycrocketts](https://sonnycrocketts.tumblr.com/). Have some angst, babe.

When Mama would shut herself away in the guest bedroom, away from Kate and Scott, away from Daddy, no one mentioned it. They’d give her the space she needed. Would bring up a hot plate for her. Chicken, potatoes, and carrots. Peas from the freezer that Kate had taken out to thaw that afternoon.

They’d leave her alone. As she wanted. And, sometimes, it did help. She’d come out a day later, more relaxed. Would have enough energy to take a shower. To go with Daddy to the store. Later, he’d tell Kate how she actually carried on small talk with the girl working the cash register.

The point is this: Kate knows that no matter how much you love someone, you have to give them the space they need. If they want to be alone, you remove yourself. If they want quiet, despite how much you might want them to share with you, you give them the quiet they crave.

She does this with Seth. Lets him fold in on himself when he needs to. Doesn’t push for a how or a why. Simply lets him be and trusts she’s making the right decision. Despite how scary it is, sometimes. And it is—scary. How he blames himself for things he has absolutely no control over. How he figures he needs to punish himself for them. Like when Richard gets nicked in the arm by a stray bullet during a heist and Kate hears Seth audibly going over the ways in which he could have stopped it when he thinks she’s asleep. How, over the course of the days following, he won’t even allow himself to look his brother in the eye.

Kate doesn’t mention this to him. Doesn’t ask him about it. Doesn’t request that he help her understand. Because she knows. She knows these behaviors he cultivates are borne from some abscess. Knows that to direct his attention to them would only cause him to deflect. “I love you,” she says, instead. First floor motel room. Seth’s body stationed between where she’s curled around him and the door. (He’s been anxious over her wellbeing since their first days traversing Mexico together. But since her being back, since her death, since her possession, it’s almost turned into a fixation.)

“I love you,” she repeats. “I love you so much.” Can’t help noticing the way Seth always looks at her like he’s watching a parody when she says those words. Like she’s pulling one over on him. Like she’s play-acting. She traces the planes of his face with her thumb. Forehead to cheek, ear to jawline.

He stops her with a hard kiss. Works his way down her body and buries himself between her legs.

Kate figures this is his way of hiding.

 

 

 

 

 

“You can ask me anything,” he says. Nine-forty-two in the morning. Greyhound bus to Cincinnati. They’re traveling separately from Richard after a close brush with the police. Following the usual protocol when obscure facial deposits of their likenesses are handed out to local law enforcement. Kate will travel with one of them, while the other will scout a safe place to lay low for awhile.

This time, she’s with Seth. Miniature donuts holes dusting white over her thighs and the hem of her denim shorts. Bitter gas station coffee in hand. She wrinkles her nose when she takes a sip, wishes she put more sugar in it.

“Come on,” Seth prompts. “I’m waiting.” It’s a game they play. Their own variation on twenty-question or some such nonsense. An attempt at keeping their minds occupied.

Kate swats him lightly on the arm. “I’m trying to think of a good one,” she says.  

One minute passes. Three. Seth makes a theatrical and long-suffering sigh while leaning further back into his seat.

“Okay. Favorite subject in high-school?”

“Really?” Seth doesn’t seem impressed.

Kate shrugs. “I want to know.”

“Um. Shit, babe, I don’t know.” He scrubs a hand over his face and it makes a slight scraping noise. His standard five-o’clock shadow has started to grow into a more prominent beard. “How about English? Yeah, I guess I liked that.”

“What’d you like about it?”

“Stories, you know. I was a quick reader.”

“Straight A’s, huh?” Kate giggles. Finds the image of a young Seth hunched over textbooks with a swath of thick hair and tennis shoes makes her feel warm to the tips of her toes. Wonders if a physical sensation like that is as close as you can get to articulating love.

“Not really,” Seth says. “I could never crack those tests. The information never stayed with me long enough. Didn’t matter how long I studied.” He’s got this far-off look in his eye. “I’ve never been as smart as Richard. He’s always had to be the brains for the both of us.”

“Hey,” Kate murmurs, and she’s got this feeling that maybe she shouldn’t have asked the question in the first place. But trying to traverse Seth’s many insecurities has always been difficult. “You’re brilliant. Single minded focus and strength. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Seth opens his mouth for a rebuttal but Kate reaches forward to place a hand over it. Skin warm from holding her coffee cup, his lips are cold under her fingers.

“Don’t argue with me on this,” she says.

 

 

 

 

 

The supernatural rankles. Won’t ever leave them alone for long. And, yes, while Richard isn’t entirely human—he’s Seth’s, and he’s Kate’s, and he’s as invaluable to them as the air they breathe or the blood that travels their veins.

The rest, the three of them could happily do without. Have had their share and decided they’re better off secluded away. In the mundane world of the ordinary, where emptying bank vaults and flushing accounts serves to get their adrenaline pumping just fine. 

Kate can’t pinpoint exactly how or when it happens. One moment, they’re happily squatting in hotels and making the most of fully furnished condos that haven’t been purchased yet, dinning at four-star steakhouses and dancing at nightclubs until early morning dawns. The next, some culebra henchmen from who-knows-where come a-knockin’, demanding to know where Santanico Pandemonium is held up at.

There’s four of them, large, imposing, with fangs out and snarling. Words aren’t a priority and they’d rather take what they want by force. They shatter the condo’s windows, tear the furniture to bits. Richard’s trying to talk them down, offer a détente, ever the problem solver. But they’re not giving him an ear, and Kate has panic coiling her limbs into action like springs; knowledge of the stillness of death suspended in her memory, terrifying.

She’s not thinking, simply doubles down and snaps the leg of a chair into a sharp point, fast as a jack rabbit. But not fast enough. One of the culebras lunges for her and she sees his blurred shape ready to bite when Seth steps in front. Takes the injury that was meant for her and falls.

And it’s the yell Seth lets out—Kate thinks, later—that serves to set Richard off, the sound clicking a hidden switch inside. Because he starts cutting the intruders to size as easily as a lawnmower does overgrown grass. Blood rains like water from sprinklers, covering Kate where she’s moved to hunch over Seth, and the whole scene looks almost balletic, Richard moving so fluid and easy.

He looks to them when it’s over. Harsh pants making his chest stutter, self slick with grime, fangs starting to retract. His eyes go calm, concerned, concentrated entirely on her and his brother. And, despite the circumstances they’ve only now been in, Kate’s never felt more safe.

They get Seth patched up, a good chunk taken out of his shoulder. Thankfully, the wound isn’t nearly as bad as she and Richard expected at first glance.

“Easy, kiddo.” Seth winces when Kate liberally pours more hydrogen peroxide over the torn and reddened flesh. The gaping hole already mostly clean, amateurishly sewn shut, blood running in watery trails down his arm before she mops it up with a towel.

“I know that you’ve never given a shit about what happens to you,” she says, biting her lip, taking a strip of gauze to wind tightly around his shoulder. “But you’ve got to start thinking about how that mentality affects those around you. Because there _are_ people who love you. And who, when you’re hurt, are too.”

“What was I supposed to do?” There’s a clear challenge in Seth’s voice. “Tell me.”

And Kate can see it, again—the moment when he fell. Sees a different outcome. Damage too far gone. Seth not moving. Tries to imagine what she’d do. Can’t. “Not that,” she says.

Don’t ever trade yourself for me.

 

 

 

 

 

Kate’s never been confident about her appearance or her body.

She’s never obsessed over it though. Has always figured there are more important things in life to worry about.

And besides, when she had Kyle he liked her well enough for so many different reasons. For the way she could quote bible verses off the top of her head, easy as pie. For the way she’d find silver linings in piss-poor situations. At least those were the reasons he gave her. That and—‘You smile at the damndest things, Kate. It’s cute.’

She was happy, content, _comfortable_.

Being with Seth is different. Not that she’s not happy. She is. Possibly the happiest she’s ever been in her life. Can’t help the feeling of irrefutable joy that unfurls whenever he so much as smiles. How, when he’ll do something as simple as put a hand on her shoulder, she’ll go weak in the knees. It’s a little pathetic, really.

But Seth is older. More experienced. Has been with so many women that aren’t her. That she’ll never be. That she’ll never look like. She’s young and short and her stomach is round near the bottom and her breasts are small. And no matter how many times he looks at her, eyes dark, no matter how many times he praises her, whispering compliments and dirty nothings into her ear, no matter how many times he asks her to ride him just so he can better watch her, Kate can’t seem to get over her self-consciousness.

She’s wrapped up in those anxieties as she straddles him for another countless time, her ass kneaded by his hands as she sinks onto him. Lets out a guttural moan, still so sensitive. Round three and yet they have no plans on stopping. She never knew sex could feel like this. Terrible and exhilarating and compulsory.

Seth brings one hand forward to trace her collarbone, run his palm down her chest, pads of his fingers catching on her stiff nipples and dragging flat along her torso. He’s saying, “You’re beautiful.” He’s saying, “You feel so good.” He doesn’t say, ‘I love you.’ Seth never says those words, although Kate knows it’s true with every action he takes.

She gives him a half tilt of her lips, never fully convinced by his compliments by loving to hear them anyway. She shakes her head, not discounting but adding her own clause to Seth’s statement, saying what he can’t—“I love you.” She moves faster, chasing that feeling which is starting to build again low in her pelvis.

Seth holds her eyes with his own all the while, stare like the feel of the sun’s rays on a cool spring day. He pulls her down by her neck, her hair falling over his chest. Opens her mouth with his tongue, licks inside, the sounds they make beginning to mingle together.

It doesn’t take long before he starts losing all sense of rhythm under her. And before she’s found her own release he’s coming, far too soon, sudden and so very hot inside her. Kate cries out at the sensation, full to the brim and aching.

“Kate, _Katie_ …” He keeps repeating her name over and over, shaking as he comes down, slips out of her. Recovers and flips her onto her back, teeth grazing overused and tender flesh. Parts her legs, fills her with his fingers where she’s now bereft; empty and clenching. “Come on, kid,” he encourages, words puffs of breath against her skin, and Kate flushes hot at the nickname, at the feel of his fingers scissoring inside her and his tongue darting to trace an arch at the inside of her thigh. “You’re going to come wet and warm for me, aren’t you? Right here, right now.”

His name’s right there in response, but all that comes past her lips is a simple mewling sound, choked off consonant of, “S—”

Seth smirks in response, looks unbearably pleased with himself and, somehow, simultaneously moved at the same time. His fingers stroke all the way over her pussy. Curved, wrist bent, cupping the edges where the mess he filled her with is slowly and surely slipping out. “Just let it out, sweetheart,” he says. “You want me to hear you, don’t you? Want me to see it when you come. _Please_ , Katie, just let me see you come.” His thumb presses hard on her clit when he says this, mouth going to join his fingers after.

Tongue moving to circle her sex, it then touches her clit, joins his thumb, three deep curling sharply inside, and Kate’s lifting off the bed until Seth brings an arm across her stomach to hold her down, bases tumbling to dust, all good sense completely shot to hell. She’s babbling breathlessly, saying, “God,” and, “Christ,” and, “ _Seth_.”

More soft passes of his tongue. Gentle kisses and whispered murmurs bringing her back to earth.

“Every time,” Seth’s saying, going to kiss her, let Kate taste herself on his lips. “Every time I see you—” Fractured fragments that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but Kate hums softly; acknowledgment and an answer.

She turns her head, kisses his palm where it rests against her cheek, admitting, “For me, too.”

 

 

 

 

 

There are moments where you think you have a handle on a person, or a situation. Where you think you know everything, when, in fact, you know absolutely nothing.

Kate’s experienced moments like these. Several times. With Mama. Because as much as Kate knew she was suffering, knew that she was depressed, knew that she needed help, she never actually thought she’d try to take her own life. With Daddy, because she naïvely thought she knew everything about what happened between him and Mama before he explained.

With Seth, because when he jolts awake from a nightmare for the first time, a violent yell ebbing in his throat, Kate’s terrified.

She’s trying to reach him, cut through the haze he seems to be lost in, saying, “Hey, it’s me. You’re with me.” But he’s not listening. He’s scrambling. Pushing at her with both hands and he’s strong. Too strong. She falls back against the edge of the mattress, nearly falling off the bed.

“Seth!”

And he’s simply _there_. Aware, trying to speak but the words sound heavy, rasped, like a death rattle. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” he’s apologizing, and Kate just shakes her head over and over. Sits up and moves back towards him hesitantly. Sees his face cast in the artificial light coming from outside. From the suburb lamps standing tall. From the subdivision they moved into with Richard. Hidden in a small, obscure town. One of their many homes.

Seth looks _young_. Small. Boyish and scared.

Kate feels at a loss. Doesn’t know what to do. But she knows she wants to touch him. Wants to gather him in her arms and make sure he’s protected from whatever demons were invading his dreams. Instead, she settles for placing a hand at his elbow. Lightly, so lightly, making sure not to spook him. “What was—”

“My dad.” The answer is blunt, said without hesitation. (This never happens. He always deflects when it comes to this.) Seth sighs, wiping a hand across his temple where sweat has gathered. Gives Kate the smallest smile at her look of surprise. “Mine as well tell you, sweetheart. You get to the bottom of everything eventually.” He leans back into the pillows, taking her with him. Not relaxed, but noticeably less tense. Calmer.

“What do you remember?” Kate asks.

“Fists,” Seth admits. Shoots Kate an indiscernible look when her hold tightens around him. “Look, I wasn’t the best son. I was constantly getting into trouble. Never knew when to keep my mouth shut—”

He’s on the defensive for a man who doesn’t deserve _anything_ from him, and it makes Kate sick to her stomach. “You were a kid. You were exactly who you needed to be.” She knew on some level what he went through before. When Amaru touched his skin and Kate could see so many years stripped to the bone. But what she received at the end of the feedback loop were only mere outlines of actual events. Hazy images, barely containing any form or substance. Actions not so clear, snippets without context. Though they were accented with sharp imprints of feeling; terror, pain, helplessness.

Hearing the words come from Seth’s own mouth is something else entirely.

“Can we not…” He trails off, shuts his eyes tight. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

“Okay.” Kate kisses him on the cheek, says, “I’m going to get you some water. I think it’ll do you good.” It’s small, inconsequential. But it’s something productive. Helpful.

She gets up, makes her way downstairs. Finds Richard sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, hair mussed and glasses slightly askew. “Kate—”

“Did you—”

“Hear? Yeah, it woke me up.”

Kate sits across from him, starts, “When we were… he never…”

“They don’t happen that often anymore,” Richard assures. “And they usually aren’t this bad.”

There’s a pregnant pause. Kate tries to tamp down the intrusive thoughts entering her head. Fails. “And you?” She asks, snapshots of memory colliding; spirit stretched and waning, insides open to her—Richard at four, sitting in the principal’s office, ‘We think there’s a problem. He’s not socializing properly.’ Richard at seven, caught watching TV with Seth when they shouldn’t, their father hurling obscenities and drink coasters at them. Richard at eleven, canister of something chemical in his hand, he’s pouring it all over the old man, and oh God…

“We’re not talking about me,” Richard says. He takes a deep breath in. Drums his fingers across the tabletop. “The worst of them happened when we were really young. Every night he’d wake me and Eddie up yelling bloody murder. And the worst thing, Katie, the _worst_ thing, is that he still fucking loves the guy. Still hasn’t really forgiven me for… it doesn’t matter. He was going to kill him. Drink too much, swing too hard eventually, and I—I ended it.”

Throat constricting, softly, Kate says, “Thank you.” (Thank you for protecting him. Thank you for saving him before I ever even knew him.) And she hopes Richard understands, not wanting to elaborate anymore on the sentiment. Because then she’d have to consider the fact that she just thanked him for killing a man.

Richard regards her, tilts his head slightly to the side. His mouth is slanted into a frown. “Kate.”

“Yeah, Richie?”

“I’d do it again,” he tells her, voice filled with something dark and unnamable and, above all, fiercely loving.

 

 

 

 

 

Seven houses. Nine different passports with equally different names. Various suitcases filled and stashed in case they need to run. Scattered excuses for an unconventional life, but Kate wouldn’t change any of it.

She rests her weight against Seth in the backseat of a vintage Alfa Romeo Spider, remains of her lunch in her lap and the car’s leather hot under her thighs.

They’re in the middle of nowhere. A stretch of dry highway in Arizona. A dustbowl.

“Better?” She wonders.

Seth wanted to skip town for the day. Find a place where it could just be the two of them, alone with each other and their thoughts and nothing else.

Kate can feel his lips against her skin.

“Better now,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are like peppermint hot chocolate. You can find me being extra about FDTD over on [Tumblr](http://highsmith.tumblr.com/).


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